English professor Jim Bennett has a dual personality. By day, he lectures university students in an animated way on the modern novel. By night, he debases himself and everything he professes to believe by repeatedly wagering every dollar he has and all he can borrow, up to a quarter million, until he's stripped bare. He embraces peril and courts disaster.

The controversial, impeccably made “Zero Dark Thirty” chronicling the hunt for Osama Bin Laden begins with a dark screen. As we hear alarmed voices crying out we realize it’s 9-11. Cut to scenes of a terrorist suspect subjected to various tortures—waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinement in a small box—all in disturbing close-ups. CIA agent Maya observes, reacts, and comments.

A familiar story receives a remarkably engaging, technically impressive presentation in director Andrew Dominic’s “Killing Them Softly.” Two dim-witted, imprudent petty criminals decide to rob a high-stakes mob poker game. A professional hit man arrives to set things straight, meaning retribution for those foolish enough to overstep their bounds.